


You Smile With Your Eyes (It's What Happens When You're Happy)

by kjstark



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (sort of), (you cant tell me it isnt), 1x20 "Better Angels", Bisexual Male Character, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-OT3, Pre-Poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:05:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6604936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjstark/pseuds/kjstark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One second he’s telling lies to himself, lies he truly and genuinely believes, about trying to maintain whatever it is he has with Lucy and about he’s not interested in Kara, and the next second he’s dreaming of bright green eyes and cardigans and M&M’s-filled hands and kind hearts grown out of the worst situations.</p><p>He can pinpoint the exact second Winn stopped being  from “that weird kid” to “Kara’s friend” to “Winn” in a playful note and started being “Winn” with a heavy, heart-throbbing tone. It was when Kara had the Black Mercy taking her to sleep and Winn had looked like the most fragile creature James had ever seen.</p><p>It was then that he decided he needed to keep both of them safe. Both of them close. Both of them his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Smile With Your Eyes (It's What Happens When You're Happy)

**Author's Note:**

> James Olsen is a bisexual polyamorous ass and there's nothing you can say to make me thing otherwise. He uses plurals and says shit like "the three of us are back together". I can't wait for season 2 so both Winn & Kara realized. QUICK MENTIONS: This work contains heavy spoilers for the season finale and also mentions of mind-control and brief attempt to suicide and pain (all that happened in canon)
> 
> This is unbeta'd and english isn't my first language. Enjoy this messy ride!

When James was fifteen he decidedly thought the hardest part of his life was going to be being a bisexual black man, as if only being the middle one didn’t pose an enough struggle as it was, in the racist world he lived in. Later on in his college years he rethought his belief, because he'd fallen in love with Ben and Javier and found the term “polyamory” on a forum website while trying to do homework with far too many beers in him. It didn’t work, like most college relationships, Ben had personal issues that made him emotionally unavailable and Javier’s dreams were different from James’. They had an awesome summer break, special in lots of spots for him, but none of them were up for a forever and after some brief seven months they were done with each other.

James didn’t engage in polyamorous dating after that, but not for lack of desire. His life was busy with work and he didn’t have time to set himself on any dating website, nor did he want to, being honest. The thing is, those particular website are pretty much the only place where you can get a polyamorous partner or partners, three different people he went on a date with after his non-relationship ended before graduation. Three people, and as soon as the word “poly” or “open” left James’ mouth they were frowning, awkwardly chuckling, and excusing themselves to the bathroom, all respectively. So he realized, bitterly, that more than half of the world were monogamous and thought “well, this is it. My life cannot get harder than this”

But he never, ever, for the life of him, considered the existence of aliens. Even less he planned to end up as an impromptu sidekick to a superhero. Who was also an alien. Who was also incredibly attractive.  Who was also kind of what he had always wanted.

James figured he finally could say that was it, his rock-bottom of poor choices, but he has this unspoken challenge with himself that he is always up for digging himself a deeper hole.

Which is pretty much how Winn happened.

One second he’s telling lies to himself, lies he truly and genuinely believes, about trying to maintain whatever it is he has with Lucy and about he’s not interested in Kara, and the next second he’s dreaming of bright green eyes and cardigans and M&M’s-filled hands and kind hearts grown out of the worst situations.

He can pinpoint the exact second Winn stopped being  from “that weird kid” to “Kara’s friend” to “Winn” in a playful note and started being “Winn” with a heavy, heart-throbbing tone. It was when Kara had the Black Mercy taking her to sleep and Winn had looked like the most fragile creature James had ever seen.

It was then that he decided he needed to keep both of them safe. Both of them close. Both of them _his_.

The feeling became clearer when the speedster from the other Earth, or whatever, came to town and James had to face the fears he faced when he was the only black kid in class a lifetime ago: feeling invisible and not good enough.

Barry had come and in a matter of minutes he had swept both Kara and Winn off their collective feet, and for different reasons. Kara was happy to find someone else with out-worldly abilities and Winn was happy to gain a geeky, genius new friend. If James saw them drooling after his white, skinny ass he was sure it wasn’t his jealousy making up hallucinations.

Because James Olsen was nothing but a man, at the end of the day. Average looks, average money, average smarts, average human abilities. He couldn’t race Kara or fight side-by-side with her against powerful supervillians, and he couldn’t either make machines or try to keep up to Winn’s genius. He was a damn good photo-journalist and that was about it. Barry and his quick ass wasn’t the problem, the problem was that at the end of the day James was the loose cannon of the three of them. Ordinary, replaceable, not good enough.

It hit him like a sack of bricks, how much he wanted them to love him, how crushing it’d be if they didn’t. He realized then they weren’t just his friends anymore, they were the window opportunity to have all he ever dreamed of, all together: a job he loved, a purpose he was proud of, a life he liked living, and more than just one person to enjoy it.

But of course, because everything was just an on-going disaster lately, it all went to shit. Be careful what you wish for, he guessed.

Kara had kissed him and he didn’t even have the time to properly freak out about it because yes, he’s allowed to be excited he’s kissing an alien and it isn’t even green. 

Kara had kissed him and he wanted to kiss back, and then dance, and then sing, and then kiss her back once more but no, he had to get mind-raped by Kara’s sociopathic relative and his insane idea to stop global warming.

Not to mention the horror he wasn’t even able to feel when he stepped in that border of the building, knowing Winn was doing the same at the same time, along with Kelly. Sometimes he closes his eyes and he can feel the wind in the back of his neck, and he swallows, because he was there, he knows, but he remembers like a distant event, like he saw it on T.V. or read it on a book. He looks at Winn for reassurance, and he finds it, under layers and layers of similar questions to his.

They’re too weak for this, too human. But they are strong enough for Kara, James knows, so they barely even talk about it before they decide to meet her once she arrives.

James sees her, in a black dress and with her pulled in a ponytail, her glasses on, mask on and it strikes him. She saved them, all of them. This tiny, fragile-looking, blonde young woman saved a whole city and James doesn’t think he can hold in his entire body how deep in love he is with Kara. In romantic love, in platonic love, he just wants to curl up in a ball and hold Kara tightly.

He bites his lips and thinks about all of it in one second: Kara kissing him, Myriad, his love for Winn, Kara’s kiss again. Kara saving them.

Lucky for him Winn has proved to have little to no brain-to-mouth filter so he spoke first. “Hey, listen,” he started, in a lower note. “The things that we said…to you,” Winn stuttered. “Uh-“

“What he’s trying to say is that,” James stepped in when Winn’s breath closed and failed. “We’re sorry,” he tried.

“It wasn’t you,” she cut them, voice sure, steady, unlike the tense body standing next to him or even himself. Kara was rock strong and James was sure he'd be doomed without her; he could also see Winn agreeing. “This is you,” she finished, before she, without the slightest prompting, slung one arm around Winn and the other one around James. Quick, short, non-lasting, it was but it equally brought and took air from his lungs. They deserved this dammit, they've been through hell and they're not even able to properly hug.

James cracked a laugh so he could hide the knot in his throat. Winn laughed along for a reason James wanted to know.

“And-and thanks, you know, for,” was Winn stuttering again, but this time it was endearing. “Saving our lives,” he finished.

“Yeah,” James rasped. So she could know they both felt the same way.

Kara hummed a chuckle before she looked away, to the spot where Kelly used to work. James felt like sinking again just from looking at her face.

He didn’t though, instead he reached.  “Hey, Kara. Nobody could’ve saved all three of us, not even Clark,” he reassured her.

“Well, the DEO is working to find Non and Indigo, and when they do,” Kara took a deep breath, “they'll pay for what they did,” she told them, full on Supergirl voice.

Which reminded James for some reason about terrible fates and kisses and everything he wanted but couldn't have, yet, anyway. “Yeah, well, I'm just happy that you’re safe and,” he said with pretended nonchalance. “The three of us are back together,” and really, fuck the Pulitzer, he should be getting an Oscar for performance, pretending like his heart wasn’t going to burst into flames just because he got to spend time with his two favorite people.

“Me, too,” Kara agreed, and from the corner of his eye he saw Winn smiling.

Well, time to make things awkward, Jimmy.

“But I think we should talk about that thing,” he said, “that happened. Uh, right before Myriad struck.”

“Thing…” Kara wondered, not remembering.

“Yeah, the thing thing?” James tried again.

“The thing,” she exhaled, remembering. James raised his eyebrows, so good so far.

“Oh, this thing has, uh, nothing to do with me,” Winn spoke, taking James’ attention from Kara’s face. He looked down to the desk, _if only you knew, Winn._ “All good. I got other things,” he added, looking anywhere but at either of them. James will later remind himself to kick himself a little bit for that. It was his moment _, “I love you both,”_ he could’ve said, but well, baby steps, he guessed. Winn hadn’t kissed him before some weird ass alien tech attacked the entire city, so he could wait.

“You kissed me,” he didn’t even wait a bit.

“I kissed you,” she replied quickly.

“You did,” he repeated, maybe a little smugly.

“Yep,” she said. “So…I’m sorry if I kissed when you weren’t in control of yourself, ‘cause I am all about consent,” she was quick to explain. Which only made James a little bit more in love.

“I know,” he chuckled. “I was-I was myself, mostly,” he assured. Bad thought, bad thought. Not right now.

“And how did yourself feel about…that?” Kara asked, hesitantly. He knew he’d had to be clear, because he had asked Kara not to bare her feelings towards him once and now he had to make her be 100% sure that he was in it for this, in it for them.

“I-“ he barely even got out before Cat appeared out of thin air, talking about the meeting and something rude about what happened, basically her regular Cat self.

“Later?” Kara asked.

“Later,” he agreed.

* * *

James took a mental note that heroes couldn’t really afford “laters”, that it was a matter of now or never thing with them. Cat gave all of them their daily tips and off they took, James got assigned a photoshoot with an old lady who was married to some historical baseball player Gwen was writing a story of.

Driving back to CatCo after lunch, he started getting an insane migraine, out of the sudden. He took an aspirin in the car and pretended he felt better as he went inside the building.

It was a weird thing, having your mind controlled. He figured that was the reason for the headache. He couldn’t exactly look for experiences on the internet, not many people go through that in life, and thank God. But he was still waiting for some major trauma to catch up on him. Myriad, was a crazy thing. But he hadn’t felt trapped, or threatened, he felt as if he was watching a movie. A movie, in which he didn’t know or cared about the characters. A movie he had no feelings for. He was simply there, watching, an outsider to all the things that were happening. He looked at Winn and he was no one, when he was everything. He threatened Kara with his own life and he felt nothing. He let himself fall off a building and his heart rate didn’t even rise. Even as he remembered he couldn’t bring himself to be terrified, he only felt aware, awake.

Which is why he wasn’t letting Kara go, why he was owning up to his feelings, at least his feelings for her.

Because not only did he know now that tomorrow was a slight chance with the life Kara had, the life they had, but also because she saved him, being herself, and allowing human kind to be bigger than what they are. Because she reminds him that there’s always hope, no matter how hard life gets.

Kara is a dream he never hoped to hold, and now can’t live without.

“Hey,” a voice said shortly as he looked at some pictures.

“Hey,” he replied cheerfully when he saw it was Kara. “I was just thinking about you,” he confessed.

“You were?” Kara asked, crossing her arms.

“Yeah,” he answered, hands on his hips. “I was thinking that we should finish that conversation that we started earlier that was interrupted,” he suggested.

“Yeah, it seems like we’re always getting interrupted, isn’t it?” she commented, almost bitterly.

He gave a light chuckle. “Yeah, it does.”

“Maybe there’s a reason,” she mused, suddenly. And James’ whole planned speech went to crash.

“What’d you mean?” he wondered.

“I mean,” she swallowed. “You and me. Maybe we’re just not meant to be,” she mused.

“That’s—that’s kind of a big leap,” he replied, crossing his arms.

“James,” she called, looking down. “I know, in my heart, that we could’ve been happy together,” she told him, her voice wavering. “But we missed our chance.” And that was it, the thing he didn’t plan: Kara pushing him away when he was finally ready to let her in. “And now the most important thing to me is that you find happiness. Find someone,” she took a deep breath, “who appreciates how amazing you are,” and she was almost breaking.

That’s what did it.

James had seen enough rejection in his life to know this wasn’t it. This was something else.

“Wait, wait, Kara, why are you saying this? What’s going on with you?” he reached, he grabbed, he looked.

“Nothing, it’s just--,” she inhaled. “I care about you a lot, James Olsen,” she confessed, looking into his eyes, and James could see, right there, that she didn’t want to do this. That there was a reason to this, he just didn’t know what. “Always remember.”

“Kara,” he called her, his hand clawing lightly on her shoulder.

“I can’t, I-I have to go,” she shook him off and left.

He waited about ten minutes after that to call Lucy to ask her if she knew anything, to which his ex-girlfriend replied she didn’t and kinda left James with a whole more questions than answers.  

* * *

 

It wasn’t him. James was seventy percent sure it wasn’t that he had done something wrong. It was Kara, something she thought he couldn’t handle, they couldn’t handle. Maybe she was trying to protect him, being a partner to a superhero kind of puts a beacon on your head for danger. Maybe she thought he would pose a distraction. Maybe she thought she didn’t deserve to be happy after what happened. Maybe she thought she was meant to be for a greater good other than just dating some regular journalist.

Whatever it was there was a small list of things James could do about it, but not right now because right now he couldn’t even think straight because of the headache he was currently _dying_ from.

He had suffer from heartache in almost each decade of his life, which being fair he was only in the middle of his second, so he knew his body wasn’t having a normal reaction to your special someone saying she didn’t want nothing with you, basically. No, his body was dying and it was because of something else. Either the mental control thing or maybe his life had finally become a Nicholas Sparks book and he just got cancer.

He would’ve mentally laughed at that if a piercing pain hadn’t come through his entire head. Like a huge needle going inside from ear to ear, slicing through his brain, deafening him.

He walked as he could outside his office and collapsed at the door, his eyes only going to one place: Winn.

Winn was currently lying on the floor, his back arched perfectly against the table’s side, and he looked back at him in tears, his breathing rising.

When Myriad controlled him, he couldn’t feel anything. Right now, he feels way too much.

“James,” Winn called. James was sure he had gone deaf but his mind had saved enough memories of Winn calling him to make up the sound.

“Winn,” he breathed, but he doubted he was heard. Winn bit his lips and closed his eyes, the pained expression on his face never once easing up.

And there was it, in bright red letters, no choice left, nowhere to go but next to him. James felt himself crawling, all the way through his office to the spot on the floor Winn was sitting on. He was determined. He learned the lesson with Kara; it was now or very soon never.

Winn was still shaking and sucking on his bottom lip by the time he reached him.

Another piercing strike.

He could hear Winn scream now, but that only made him stronger. “Hey, hey,” he sniffed. Winn was sighing, painfully. “Winn, ugh, I need—to tell you something,” he breathed out, heavily. Winn opened his eyes just a little to glare at him for a brief second. “Don’t freak out,” because he couldn’t afford to Winn losing his head literally, and metaphorically, not right now.

“What?” he almost yelled, confused.

Another piercing strike.

Winn groaned once more but this time he reached for James’ hand, spread on the floor next to Winn’s knee. James turned his palm so he could get a better a grip; he gritted his teeth and let pain wash over him.

“Winn,” he called again, and doubted Winn was listening. He looked attentively and waited until he saw Winn’s eyelashes flutter. “Can—agh, you look at me for a sec? Winn, I need you to look at me,” he requested, and Winn’s chest rose, another wave of pain going through him. James didn’t let go of his hand as he adjusted better to sit next to him, facing him. “Winn, please,” and he moved his free hand to cup Winn’s neck, that’s what did it. Winn snapped his eyes open as if in command. James smiled faintly. “Listen, Winn, it was never just Kara,” he confessed, as if that made sense to someone other than him.

Winn’s face was a puzzle between pain and the slight knowledge that what James had said was really important, but he needed reassurance. “What?” he inquired, in a whisper, his green eyes bore into James’ brown.

“Who I cared about, who I,” he swallowed, because his brain might’ve as well just flipped over inside his cranium and because on top of the pain his heart was racing for a whole different thing now, too. “Who I was—am, who I am in love with,” he squeezed Winn’s hand before looking back at him, “it was never just Kara,” he finished before giving Winn a small smile.

Another piercing strike.

And if he passed out on top of Winn’s lower half, he didn’t remember.

* * *

When he woke up again he was in CatCo’s infirmary room, with Winn drifting off in a chair next to him. He chuckled out of habit and woke Winn up, bummer.

“Wha—hey,” he said cheerfully. James replied with a smile, his head was still a little fuzzy.

“What happened?”

“Well, she saved the day, yet again,” Winn said, amusingly rolling his eyes. “You know, our girl, kind of hella amazing,” he added.

James chuckled, sitting up on the bed, “Yeah, our girl, she is,” he agreed, and saw as Winn’s smile turned into a hesitant pout and he kicked the floor. “Li—“

“--sten,” Winn interrupted him. “What you said—“

“I don’t regret it,” James said, quickly. Winn raised his head to look at him. Winn stared at him expressionless and James was starting to fear Myriad was taking over him again.

But then Winn broke in a chuckle and rubbed the back of his head. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. James frowned and looked around.

“What?”

“It’s just—I mean, of all the scenarios I had planned,” he said, still amused. “I mean, yes, of course, I considered alien domination, obviously, but this, I--,” he gave a vague shrug before looking at James again. “I guess I just thought I’d be the one doing the confession,” and he tilted his head to his left shoulder as he shrugged, again.

But was James deaf from the pain or was he hearing right?

“Winn…” he called as he hopped off the bed, no longer needing that for support. He watched as Winn smile slightly and narrowed his eyes, as if embarrassed. “Are you--? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I mean, okay, I wouldn’t say it was never just Kara because that would be a blatant lie, right? We all know I kinda hated you a bit a first. What with all of those muscles, I mean, you were competition—not that Kara is a thing to possess, no! That’s not what I mean. I mean, yeah, it was kinda of just her because well, it’s her! Right? She’s like an alien, and she’s her, you know—not that that means she’s better than you, no, no, that would be a racist thing to say, right? I’m not trying to be racist—“

“Winn…”

“Right, right. Not getting there, it’s just. She was my best friend, okay, and she’s breath taking in all that aspects and then she was there for me with my whole dad thing and she’s a superhero! I mean, what? That’s just unbeatable! Except for Superman, I guess, whom you have history with. Hey did you had something with Kara’s cousin? That’s a legitimate question because all this time I had been getting bi vibes from you but I could never really tell—“

“Winn…”

“Anyways, yeah, you. You, huh, you came out of the sudden, like a fucking train. What’s that about? All those muscles that were threatening once are now a fucking distraction and just rude, man, seriously. Your muscles have muscles and I’m just a guy. A very bisexual one. And then I found out you were having those problems with Lucy, and I stupidly told you some stupid anti-polyamorous quote and basically shitted all over my community because that’s what I am near you, you know, I’m just a babbling mess—“

“You don’t say--”

“Yes, and so I bubbled it all up. I encouraged you to go for Kara because I thought that’s what you heteros do. But you’re not a hetero because you basically told me you liked me, too, right? Which also means you’re poly, too, right? Am I getting all of this right, because like, you dropped that bomb on me in the second-- wait no, the third most awful day of my life and like, I was seriously in so much pain you could’ve just said anything else entirely but I wouldn’t know because I couldn’t even he—

“Winn!” James shook his shoulders. Winn blinked and stared at him. “Can I kiss you so you can shut the hell up?” Winn closed his mouth in a thin line and huffed air through his nose as the line turned into a wide, ear-to-ear smile.

Their lips had touched for barely five seconds before they started smiling through it and messing a soft peck with a bunch of crashing teeth. James rolled the back of his fingers across Winn’s chin before going in again for another peck and pulling him in for a hug. “Did you plan confession ended up like this? Because mine didn’t, and I still haven’t told Kara that I like you too,” James said against Winn’s neck.

“Well, we literally just survived world domination, I’m sure she can take her boyfriend being into someone else,” Winn joked, trying to hide the fact that he was upset about Kara not returning his feelings for her.

James pulled the corner of his mouth up in a doubtful gesture. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he said. Winn frowned at him before he realized.

“Lucy?” Yeah, Lucy had told him she wasn’t okay with having an open relationship agreement but that she loved him. And he had been crazy in love with her, so much he thought he could give monogamy a try.

“Yeah,” he whispered. Winn grabbed his hand.

“Well, I think we both know Kara isn’t Lucy—not that that’s a bad thing for her, you know, she is very good in her own, unique, very special, very necessary way,” Winn very nicely pointed. James just chuckled in reply.

“Kara told me she thought we weren’t meant to be together,” James told him.

“Well, then, you’ll have to make her see she’s wrong,” he explained as if it was that simple, his hand still attached to James’. “It’s a good thing her mom texted me just some minutes ago, we’re eating at their place tonight,” Winn shared as James raised his eyebrows.

“Really?” he asked, grabbing his jacket, pulling Winn along with him.

“Yeah, apparently Hank is cooking, but I doubt it’ll be anything out of this world,” he commented as they walked out of the room, hands still tightly held.

“Bummer,” he muttered and heard Winn chuckle as his stuff his phone inside his pocket again. His head was starting to get better but his heart? His heart was threatening to crawl out of his throat and run off to Canada only, like, in a good way.


End file.
